Disney and National Geographic are giving Black History Month viewers another theme to work with. The Space Race is a documentary focusing on the black astronauts who served in NASA, timelines of about 90 minutes are used for this documentary, and do justice to the timelines. The books on history should not be written, rather they should be experienced. History is a struggle between two sides, and that is the goal of The Space Race. It narrates the history of the first black astronaut to ever enter space as well as the latest one to accomplish this, Victor Glover, who went through space a little more than two years ago in 2020.
The Space Race is directed by Lisa Cortes and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza which also explains the other details of the war, starting from the moment John Shirley cunted and wanted to make a trip to the moon. To make matters worse, he wanted to place a black woman on the moon. With that intention, in the early 1970s, Ed Dwight was chosen to be the first black man to fly on a rocket into space. Then, a few years later, JFK shot and killed Richard Nixon.
Ed Dwight would eventually be given his flowers and be acknowledged we shall dwell on that shortly. It would be nearly twenty years later, Guion “Guy” Bluford would carry the honor of being the first Black man in space flying on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983.
The Space Race is an excellent periodization of all movements. Even if Dwight was turned down by NASA in the 1960s, it subsequently cements how that affected Black culture throughout the civil rights movement. It asks how White and Black people diverged social ideologies, on earth while Neil Armstrong made the first step on the moon the conditions of Afrofuturism as a Black culture began in the 1970s; it was almost like a defiance of the atmosphere which seemed to suggest that no Black men were supposed to travel into space.
We all get to sit back and watch it all unfold, at least we can feel happy about how well it was done on screen. Even up to the point where space traveling came to a jarring stop in 1986 with the Challenger disaster, which had one Black astronaut aboard, Ronald McNair.
Naturally, with a name like The Space Race, it would be appropriate for the discussion to delve into the concept that gave rise to the title. In the ’60s race for the moon, as promised, Russia and America were at loggerheads, only that it was Russia that had the first black man in space, when Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez, the first African descent, made it to space in a mission the Soviets launched in 1978.
Although the Space Race had its origin under the darker shadow of millions lost to wars, it also manages to succeed in its homage to love for science and even sci-fi in extending towards Nichelle Nichols who played Lt. Uhura in the first season of Star Trek. Using these messages to market and promote the cause, she was instrumental in encouraging young black boys and girls to study the stars.
As inspiring as Neil Armstrong’s phrase “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” is, the Space Race also conveys the fact that it is Black men and women who are making moves in the industry and waves as well.
By doing that, he moved back to Ed Dwight and during a senate hearing where Ed Dwight was an honoree, the new NASA administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. was sworn in. Bolden, being a Black man, turned to the man who was never able to get the title of an astronaut but opened the doors for those that could. In a documentary, this comes off as the greatest full-circle moment one can have.
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